Protestant reform. CONTARINI. De Potestate Pontificis in usu clavium.

CONTARINI, Gaspare. De Potestate Pontificis in usu clavium, & compositionibus, duae Epistolae. Florentiae, MDLVIII [Firenze, Lorenzo Torrentino, 1558]

8vo, 150x95 mm.; Quarter cloth and boards binding of the XIXth century. Pp. 43, [21]; last two leaves blank; Printer's device with arms of Medici on title page and at the end, woodcut initials, round and Italic type. Slight browning and traces of wear, unsophisticated copy.

Rare first edition, posthumous release work. In these two letters written in 1538 and addressed to Pope Paul III, the Venetian cardinal treats the Pontiff's powers and indicates the causes that had caused the Protestant Reformation. Cambridge Modern History: In his "Epistola de potestate Pontifias in usu clavium" and in his "De potestate Pontificis in compositionibus" he emphasised the propositions that the Papacy was a sacred charge, and that its powers were to be used for the good of the Church and not to its destruction. In all Contarini's writings the conception of the Papacy as a monarchy and not a tyranny appears. It is a monarchy over freemen, and its powers are to be used according to the light of reason. Though the Catholic reformers held strongly to the divine mission of the Papacy in the Church, they distinguished carefully between the legitimate and the illegitimate exercise of its authority. Freely the Papacy had received, freely it should give. The whole official system of the Curia with its fees and extortions had become a scandal. An iniquitous traffic in sacred things had grown up. Contarini appealed to the Pope to root out effectively this canker, which was destroying the spiritual life of the Church.